


Who, If I Cried Out, Would Hear Me

by clockworkrobots



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Depression, Episode Tag, Gen, Season/Series 10, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 13:17:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2774387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockworkrobots/pseuds/clockworkrobots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 10.09 tag for Claire Novak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who, If I Cried Out, Would Hear Me

  
The white of the walls in the group home are such a sickly colour, you think. You've learned over the course of the last seven, strange years of your life that anything white is usually a lie, anyway. Nothing's ever as _clean_ as the shade suggests, never as pure. You believed, once, in the righteousness of the world, of God and Heaven and all His angels, that white beacon for humanity to follow. But in the end they were as smeared and dirty as the chipped walls of the room they threw you in. Just as disappointing, just as cold. You feel just as alone.

You punch the wall to see your knuckles bleed. It's less for the pain--although the sting seers through your nerves and almost makes you smirk in satisfaction--but more for the _scab_ , the wound after. Physical proof of a fight you've been waging for half your life that never seems to end. You want the battle scars on your soul to show on your skin.

You clench those same fists at your sides when _he_ comes, the one being whom you both love and hate in equal measure, and hate yourself for being so weak to both.

You know before he speaks that he is not your father, but still, you cannot help the _hope_ that surges in your chest so briefly when you see his face, that face you still see in your dreams sometimes, the rare time you can get a full night's sleep anymore.

The face of a father you remember less and less with each new year that takes you from him.

It looks so much older now, so much more tired. You suppose that's all Castiel, though. Whatever he's been up to in the past few years, you do not know, but you are not surprised it's aged the body that he wears. He was already millions of years old, the first time you met him. It seems only fair, somehow, that he should feel exhaustion, too.

It's a morbid kind of funny to imagine that if Castiel was still in _you_ , you'd probably just look that same as you do now. 

But as the minutes pass, you begin to see more changes. When he returns to break you out, you're almost amazed that he is the same being who stole your family from you. Who looked you in the idea and destroyed everything you've ever known in one small breath. I am not your father, he'd said, twice now. But sitting across from him in the Weiner Hut restaurant, you almost wonder if he _wants_ to be. He looks at you with guilt, with regret, but _hope_ too. It makes you angry. You are _no one's_ symbol for salvation.

Not even your own.

When you run, it more to get away from Castiel than towards Randy. You like Randy, despite everything--he's given you things when no one else would, like food and a roof and at least the illusion of a family--but even his house is not far enough away from the sense of _dread_ Castiel's kindness invokes. From the heavy, sickening sensation in your stomach when you realise that still, you would say _yes_.

You runaway not because you're afraid he'll ask, but because he is a reminder of your answer. The worst thing about Castiel, perhaps, is that he reminds you too much of _yourself_.

And that is why you let him comfort you after, let him hold you in his arms that feel so familiar and alien all at once. You tell yourself it's because you can pretend they are your father's still, but you know deep down it's because you can still remember the colour of his grace, the blue-white light of unknowable energy that surrounded you once, filled you up with all its might. You remember _that_ stronger than you remember anything to do with the man who was once named Jimmy Novak, and you hate yourself for that, you do. But it doesn't stop the yearning, the desire to feel that powerful, that _in control_ again.

Dean Winchester's car is black, just as you remember it. This was the last place your family was all together. That should make you hate it, but it doesn't. People often think black is the evil colour, but to you, it isn't. It's the _absence_  of light, of white and all its false promises. And it's _honest._  It's safety. It's the rarest memory of home.


End file.
